Appendix C - Copyright and Natural Law

The Dorian Principle, A Biblical Response to the Commercialization of Christianity, by Conley Owens, Appendix C, Copyright and Natural Law.

In Chapter 13, I argued that the Dorian Principle should lead ministers to forego legal enforcement of copyright protections in the context of ministry.

However, there is a stronger case to be made that all Christians should waive such protections in all contexts.

While theologians differ on the matter, I would argue that a biblical view of natural law delegitimizes the entire notion of intellectual property.

First, it should be recognized that copyright law is an artificial imposition on the economy of creative works.

In the words of Christopher May and Susan K. Sell, Intellectual property constructs a scarce resource from knowledge or information that is not formally scarce.

Ideas are inherently reproducible, and in a digital age, the cost of reproducing most works is negligible.

However, copyright protection maintains an economy around the selling and buying of licenses to obtain copies of creative works and the rights to use them.

Beyond this initial observation, the relatively recent advent of copyright regulations demonstrates their nature as purely human inventions.

If they were instead codifications of a divine principle, one would expect such statutes to appear earlier in human history.

Additionally, while most relevant laws protect material property to perpetuity, the copyright protection offered by governments is, in all but a few circumstances, temporary.

This constitutes an implicit concession that intellectual property is not property in the truest sense.

The fact that some of these protections last for 20 years, and some longer than a lifetime, testify to the arbitrary nature of intellectual property law.

Of course, not all would agree. Some have argued that copyright protection stems from natural rights, those rights given by God.

In fact, the Founding Fathers of the United States incorporated provision for intellectual property law in the

Constitution on the basis of a Lockean understanding of natural rights. If one has a right to liberty and property, the body being irrevocably the property of the individual, then he has a right to the products of his body, the fruit of his labors.

Moreover, one who goes about the improvement of nature ought to be able to reap the rewards of that improvement.

Following this line of reasoning, one may conclude that no categorical difference exists between intellectual property and material property.

One who fashions a creative work ought to have ownership over it as his own property. While these

Lockean premises are unobjectionable, the conclusion must be questioned. To protect the product of the mind is not the right to hold a secret sufficient.

One who is not compelled to divulge information or share property may keep his creative works to himself.

However, once disseminated, he has freely given this information to the public.

With material property, a violation of the Eighth Commandment, Thou shalt not steal, results in direct loss for another individual.

With intellectual property, undesired copying and use of a published work may only be counted as a loss when estimating the potential of an idea to garner profit.

In the words of Thomas Jefferson, No one possesses the less because every other possesses the whole of it.

He who receives an idea from me receives instruction himself without lessening mine, as he who lights his taper at mine receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe for the moral and mutual instruction of man and improvement of his condition seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

In my estimation, the language employed in copyright legislation betrays the underlying utilitarian motives.

The U .S. Constitution gives Congress the power to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and investors the exclusive right to their respected writings and discoveries.

The Statute of Anne established copyright law for preventing the detriment of authors and proprietors for the future and for the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books.

Rather than flowing from natural rights endowed by our Creator, copyright law arises from a pragmatic desire to model the economy of creative works after the economy of physical goods.

If it can be granted that the government has a sweeping authority to wield its power to improve the lives of its subjects, modern copyright may have some place in society.

If, instead, the God -ordained authority of the civil magistrate is limited to the enforcement of retributive justice, the government may only prosecute those who have violated the natural rights of another.

In this view, lex talionis, Exodus 21 -24, combined with the

Deuteronomic principle that justice shall not be perverted by other prerogatives, Deuteronomy 16, 17 -20, restricts governing authorities from erecting legislation extraneous to the violation of one's property rights.

If copyright is not a natural right, then its protection is not a legitimate function of government.

If copyright is not a natural right, then it is unethical for any man or ministry to use the power of government in a court of law to enforce copyright.

In fact, rather than a protection of the copyright holder's rights, such an action would be a violation of the consumer's rights, as they ought to be able to do as they please with the information in their possession.